61. Enna
Chapter sixty-one
Enna
When I was ten, the day before Odissa murdered my father and destroyed my world, he told me to swim away and never come back. He was tired of my mermaid shit, he’d said. Tired of training a worthless half-breed to act like a siren. Tired of seeing me toddle on my wobbly two legs and struggle with my magic. I would never pass in an Abyssal court as the real thing.
He grabbed me by my hair and pulled me close, spitting the words in my face. His breath smelled of liquor. He did not see me, not then. He looked at me and saw her. My father was always afraid my mother would find me some day. He feared she’d sink her mermaid claws into me, drag me into the depths, and seduce me into a life of depravity and lust—just as she had done to him.
I didn’t listen to him that night when he told me to leave him. I waited for the magic to drain him, waited for him to release his grip, to fall into a stupor in his leather office chair, and I took away his knives, rum, and ropes. I hid them in the garbage chute like I always did.
When he got like that, he wasn’t the father I loved. The person who sometimes sat me in his lap and bounced me on his knee, ran his fingers through my long silky hair, telling me far-fetched stories of fighting monsters in the Drink.
Would I have left him, had I known what would come next? I thought I was safe there, hidden from the watchful eye of Vespyr. But the Drink couldn’t separate me from the wrath of Vespyr forever. Servants talk, secrets spread, and soon enough, trouble found us.
Odissa found us.
And I watched as everything I knew and loved ended in an instant.
I had no fight in me then, and as Odissa led me across the Drink, I vowed to never be caught weak in love again. I would become the monster my father feared I would be—so hard and loveless that when I visited my memories of him or imagined Odissa dragging her knife across his throat, I could look him in the eye of my memory and feel nothing.
Loving my father ended in pain. My love for him felt like cold and cutting numbness, and I'd tread the icy waters of my grief until the day I stepped onto that beach and Soren began to thaw my frigid heart.
This is not the same love. My love for Soren is all-consuming, brighter, and more beautiful than anything I’ve ever imagined. And if I lose him now, the sea will boil with the heat of my rage.
Odissa chokes my Soren with her knee. He flails his legs weakly in an attempt to kick her off.
I am no longer that helpless guppy, and I will not run from a fight. I will not hesitate to protect the one I love, for I am no longer alone in this world. My feelings, my safety—they shrink in proportion to a new, clearer focus.
That choked sob, stifled now by the weight of Odissa’s knee on his neck, will be the end of her.
I push onto my hands and knees, gritting my teeth through the searing heat as my muscle flexes around the foreign blade buried in my leg. Step by agonizing step, I drag myself across the floor. Odissa lifts the knife in her hand, aiming for Soren’s heart, and I attack.
I wrap my body around hers with blunt, barreling force. My legs snake around her hips, my hands around her neck, and I tear her away from him like a bloodfish from my side. The knife clatters to the floor seconds before we hit and roll, scrabbling into a fury of slashing nails and teeth.
Odissa’s hand twines in my hair, and she yanks, but I do not release her from my wrath. I find the soft flesh of her face and dig in my claws, drawing deep, bloody gashes. Her blood runs thick and wet, and I revel in the sight of it.
“Back off, Enna,” she spits, spraying blood on my face. “You should know better than to get between a death-dealer and her prey.”
Her fist connects with my cheek, sending a starburst of pain through my head. I twist to avoid the full impact, and my vision grows fuzzy. Still, I grab her by the neck, curling my fingers. Her pulse flutters manically under my touch. As she coughs, blood drips into her mouth, and she swipes her tongue over her lips, drawing it in.
With an impressive twist of her body, Odissa slips her legs beneath me and kicks. Hard. My claws scrape through the skin of her throat as I’m torn away from her, flung into the air. I land with a half-assed roll, colliding with the wall of weapons. The display rattles, loosening sharp blades. A gilded scepter clatters to the floor, narrowly missing my stomach. The scepter tapers into a sharp point, caging a solid, red jewel. And despite the horror of the moment, despite the stakes at hand if I fail, as I assess its potential for use as a weapon, I grin. That’ll work.
I grasp its handle and push from the floor. My wounded leg cries out at the exertion, but I press forward. Heart pounding in my ears, I cross the room. Soren lies moaning on the floor, streaked in blood and mumbling incoherently.
Odissa stalks toward him, drawing close now. A dagger glints in her hand.
I push my leg faster, ignoring the pain. A few more steps and I’ll intercept her.
I heft the scepter, just as she leaps for him, knife outstretched. I club her body mid-air. She crashes into the wall with a crunch. Whimpering against the stone, she slumps, her eyes searching the room but seeing nothing. I limp toward her, dragging the tip of the scepter across the floor. It screeches against the marble, the sharp sound mingling with her mewling protests. Her arm twists at an unnatural angle. Blood runs from her many cuts.
As I approach her, she lifts her face and squares her jaw, meeting my gaze with her steely eyes. “Finish it,” she spits. “Put me out of my misery.”
I raise the scepter, touching the soft part of her throat just beneath her chin. It would be so easy. One final thrust through her soft flesh with a sharp metal pike, and she’d be gone.
Because of her, Soren lies in a pool of blood. I should end her. For him. For my ten-year-old self and the life she robbed from me. Revenge is sweet; avenge is sweeter still.
“What are you waiting for, death-dealer? Quickly now.”
My hand twitches around the handle, readying for the final push. I lift her jaw further, exposing her lymph. Swift and easy. As easy as sliding my knife across my target’s throat, the day I made my first kill.
My stomach twists into a hard knot, and my anger snuffs out. My fingers slacken. My make-shift club clatters to the floor.
I won’t do it.
Odissa trained me to be a killer. She cultivated me into her personal weapon, void of emotion, blind to the beauty of the world. If I kill her now, I’m no better than the monster she created me to be.
She stares up at me, her mouth popping open in surprise. I kick the scepter away from both of us, discarding it like a poison snakefish.
I lean in until our ragged breaths mix. I grip the glowing pendant around her neck and yank. The chain snaps. Its magical glow dims. I throw it away, and the metal clatters across the floor.
I lean close so Odissa can hear every word, and I look her in the eye. “If I kill you, that’d be too easy for you. Too quick.” I cup her face. “Who am I to deprive the Eater of Souls from her midnight snack?”
She twists and snaps her teeth. With my knife, I cut a strip of cloth from my skirt, and then I bind her hands and ankles.
Her eyelids flutter shut, and she slouches against the wall. “I should have killed you in the Drink,” she wheezes.
The threat contained, my pain rears up and swallows me. I buckle at the knees, landing on all fours with a jolt. My arms wobble, burning as they support my weight.
Soren.
My elbow bends. My hand inches forward. One knee follows. My wounded leg drags behind me, careful to avoid knocking the knife deeper.
Soren.
He cannot be dead. The pain I feel now is nothing to the loss of him. That, I will not survive.
Slowly, I make my way to him, hauling my broken body onto his chest. His ribs expand and collapse in rhythm—shaky, but breathing.
“Soren.”
He groans, and his head tips toward me. He opens one eye. With bloody fingers, he digs into his pocket, producing the opal ring. “Enna,” he whispers. “You never answered my question.”
When the emotion rushes in, I do not push it away. I do not shove it deep. I unlock the cage and let it drown me alive. For if this is what love feels like, I never want to surface again.
I cup his cheek, smudging the splatter of blood away. My chest brims with heat, burning with the strength of my joy to see him alive. Breathing. Making shit jokes.
“My heart is yours, pretty prince,” I say, smiling. A fat tear rolls down my nose and splashes onto his face. “Forever.”
He slides the ring on my finger, a perfect fit.